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And it’s not just kids… we are all guilty of this at one time or another:
http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2008/03/why-most-invest.html

1. How does he handle his own money

2. How does he earn his own money

A.1. – Splits into two equal piles: spends half with impunity and no guilt on things that he needs and can afford; invests the other half in my portfolio (he asked me!).

A.2. Chores = $28 / Month Allowance + his eBay Store = $30 / week (all his own initiative … we do nothing to help).

Do I really care how he answers a few theoretical questions?

@SYL: I can’t remember one second of personal finance except as you said maybe as a math problem. But I don’t think I heard a single whisper in school about finance. Not one. Amazing, when you think about it.

@Ron: I think you said something I didn’t want to say but it’s completely true! In a selfish sense, I was armed by my parents and my son will be armed by me with an advantage over our fellow citizens. In a purely selfish sense, the “dumbing down” of American students in regards to personal finance is good news for all of us who do have some understanding. It’s harsh, it’s not pleasant to frame it in those terms, but it’s true. And since the information is not exactly The Secret – at least not if you can Google “personal finance” – I guess we hope that the rising wave will lift all swimmers!

@Elizabeth: I think there is a simple solution, which is to teach your kids about personal finance at home. The kicker is that to do this, the parents need to be educated about it in the first place. It’s a chicken-and-egg question in some ways. And you’re 100% right – I think personal finance (if it was to be taught in school) needs to come much, much earlier. High school is already too late.

@Trent, @Matt: I agree that self-discipline is more important in many ways than knowledge. I doubt there are smokers out there, for example, who are unaware that smoking is bad for them. But on the flip-side, it’s tough to “just do it” if you don’t even understand the rules of the game. If I don’t know that I NEED to pay more than the minimum on my card to pay it off – if I am really unaware of the consequences – then it’s going to be tough to understand the need for discipline. But a good point – experience and discipline are required to make use of “book knowledge.”

@plonkee: Absolutely. Glass is half full!

@Mrs. Micah: Maybe I should have said “witches who have powers beyond the ability to wear all black and listen to goth-punk music without irony”?

@Curmudgeon: I’m not sure it was bias in the survey so much as just an odd view of what’s important. Investing in the market is pitched with such fever in this country it’s often confused with fact rather than opinion. Merrill Lynch obviously has a vested interest in steering people towards investing in the market rather than, say, starting a business of their own. It’s commendable that you taught yourself. Today’s students are in an odd situation – every single drop of financial information you might ever need in your life is available through the Internet, so they have an advantage over those of us raised in the “paper era.” At the same time, the competition for their attention is mind-numbing – from Wiis to Facebook to 500 TV channels, they have to struggle mightily to focus. I don’t envy them, to be honest.

@No Debt Plan,@deepali: Yep, you’re right – same as with smoking, everyone knows it’s bad yet a significant percentage of the population still do it. Knowing and doing are two different things!